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Some may think grocery shopping by bike is hard in winter. The reality is mundane and beautiful. This is a thread about shopping for 2 weeks' worth of groceries, in winter, during a pandemic, when a snowstorm hits in #Oulu the world's winter cycling capital.
I had decided to go to the "big" grocery store. Prisma, as they call it, is kinda like what Canadians call "Superstore" or Ontario call;'s @LoblawsON. Americans might see it as @Walmart. When I arrived, it was only cloudy, and I saw my first "cyclist": /2
All bikes, except one, were regular bikes... but I took this picture of a bakfiets hoping you could see the toilet paper in her cargo bike. (Hard to see, but trust me. It's just one respectable package... settle down, you animals. Quit it.) /3
Yes, the vast majority of bikes are regular bikes. Not even studded tires. You can make out the four bike parking areas surrounding the front door here. All of them are covered, because, you know, customer service, etc.. Looking at you North American grocery chains.. 
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In cities were they haven't clued in to building/plowing bike paths, people will sometimes say foolish things like "yeah but you need a car to get groceries". It's just simply not true. A couple baskets, maybe a backpack for a big trip, usually does it. Like so: /5
I count parking lots, because I'm a nerd.
This one had 25 bikes and 70 cars.
I like to tell people that cars are like elephants in the forest. Humans are like ants. Just because an elephant is big and loud doesn't mean its the only thing there.
Watch: /6
This one had 25 bikes and 70 cars.
I like to tell people that cars are like elephants in the forest. Humans are like ants. Just because an elephant is big and loud doesn't mean its the only thing there.
Watch: /6
I keep an eye out on pedestrians too. They're notoriously sneaky (so much so that the cardinal rule in bicycle/pedestrian planning is that business owners will always greatly underestimate the number of customers that arrive on foot). But here's the path to this grocery store: /7
More snow. More bikes. More toilet paper. More people arrived. Note, the people walking across the frame are heading to the car parking, and likely driving. Every one else by bike or foot: /8
..and it snowed some more. People are very practical when it comes to winter. They get used to it. She likely didn't plan to head out in this, but clearly came prepared. Strollers and bikes share essentially the same needs when it comes to winter. I keep an eye out for both: /9
In my city, this stroller in the snow struggle is an everyday occurrence for parents w kids. A winter-long battle. Here, it's rare. You can tell simply by the number of strollers and wheelchairs you see in public are here, comparatively. /10
And it kept snowing. Eventually it became too hard to see. The snow covering my fingers started to melt, making them go numb and getting into the camera. I decided it was about time to do my own shopping. /11
It took me a while to shop. Figuring out simple things in a foreign country isn't easy. ie. how not to buy gross diet yogurt, what's beef/reindeer, etc.. By the time I had gathered enough "apocalypse groceries" for a full backpack, front basket and two bags, it was dark.. /12
Outside, I realized I had neglected to consider one thing while shopping: my way home in the fallen snow. By the time I got out, there was now 4" of snow on the ground here, all rutted by the hundreds of people on bikes that came thru. And i has a ton of groceries: /13
Imagine my joy when I saw a freshly-cleared section appear a few 100 meters later. /14
Turned out I had been on only a few 100m of unplowed section leading right into the grocery store and that I had arrived at this section in green. /15
Here is the thing though. It wasn't my neighbourhood store. This was Sunday, only a few hours after the storm had started. I had 6km to go and I didn't know where the plowing led. And then I remembered something. I could check the city of @oulunkaupunki's real time map! /16
The brown lined means something has happened to it very recently. In this case I could see that I had a clear path almost my entire route home. If you click one of the lines, it even tells you the last time anything happened and what was done. /17
It even tells you where the trucks are in case you were flexible and felt like waiting (although I am not sure I'll ever use this in anything but an emergency). Here are a couple little trucks giving a second pass in another part of the city. /18
This only shows a snapshot of the bicycle maintenance network. There are hundreds of kms of pathways connecting these that will have been plowed as well, but they aren't shown for simplicity's sake. And there are multiple types of technique used. This is 24hours later: /19
This was 12 hours ago - or early this morning - and it shows how most of it was plowed, but some had started to get other treatments: /20
For me, the important thing last night was that there was an easy way home and I could check were it went. That and the fact that it was a few hours after a snowstorm on a Sunday is a level of service I normally only dream of. /21
On the ground the result was this. If you look carefully, the road on the right is untouched. It doesn't need. And that's how you plan for cycling in a winter city, by simply thinking about what the user needs. /22
We don't need a lot. Just the basics. We might surprise. Like this basil, which, believe it or not, I managed to get home. I probably shouldn't have bought it, but I wanted something green while awaiting apocalypse.
But a couple plastic bags did it.
/END
But a couple plastic bags did it.
/END
forgot something I learned while grocery shopping: Finnish people apparently know how Canadians secretly eat yogurt. Turns out we eat maple, lingonberry, apple flavour while enjoying a view of... Banff? not sure what a lingon is, and dont think they grow in Canada, but i’m in!
